Of over 100 pc games I've played in the last year, this game is the best!

Yeah, I'm enjoying it a lot too.

It's the most that a strategy game has hooked me since Starcraft. Although my favorites have been:

1 Master of Magic
2 Master of Orion 2
3 Master of Orion.

That's just strategy games though, counting others- this is my favorite game since Baldurs Gate 2! That was a while ago...... Not been anything really I kept coming back to, recently, like Galciv.

So while it's got a bit to go before it topples MOM, it's doing incredibly well!

~SDC~

Never forget Civ II!!

Highly addictive, great gameplay/interface...

GalCiv is outstanding, but it will never reach the glory of Civ II.

For me it easily does... Never was such a Civ2 fanatic...

GalCiv is avesome of course.

From TBS i like
1) MoM - most fun IMHO
2) SMAC - heavily math-driven one
3) MoO - just slightly less fun than MoM, but GNN "Oh well another millenium serving under ruthless tyrant." (if i remember correctly)

My overall rating is
1) Star Control 2
2) Elite (Spectrum, not PC version)
3) StarCraft - FASTCLICK!!! I can bet that my Fastclick is one of the best on this forum. (Bear in mind that average player age is 33 this is even more likely). Also it's a really good strategic game - more likely than not that you have more options in StarCraft (multiplayer of course) than in GalCiv.

~SDC~

Was never really into Civ either. Or it's sequels, I acknowledge the massive impact they've had on the genre, though. I prefer a little more "fantasy" in my entertainment!

~SDC~

Oh wow, Ellestar, I had COMPLETELY forgotten Star Control 2.

Now what a game that was......

~SDC~

I can imagine it like it was yesterday. Say, minerals table: 1 (common elements),2(iodine, bromine),3(common metals),4(?),5(noble gazes),6(gold, silver etc.),8 (radioactives),25 (rare elements - Tzo crystals) if i rememer correctly.

Remember Syria? Syreen commander, Betelgeise star system.
Rumors about Black Spathi Squadron?
Shofixity Maidens?
Admiral Zex is awesome! (Even more then it's got the beast).
Secret Spathy 'password' (forget correct spelling of that word - something like 'cylinder') was Hyffi-Muffi-Guffi.
Sol coordinates: 55.5, 52.5
Parts of Ultron - Broken Ultron, Aqua Helix, Rosy Sphere, 'Clear'(also incorrect spelling) Spindle
Last assault on Sa-Matra?

Well i can remember much more.

~SDC~

Star Control 2 is my favorite game of all time. We really tried to capture a lot of the feel of SC2 in GalCiv. We're going to tkae that further in future versions we hope.

Ok how about random event 'Black Spathi Squadron'? This will be cool!

Idea! Maybe i'll make a file with all stars like in SC2.

~SDC~

SC 2 was quite better than 3, curiously sharing the same fate than the MoO series....forget the third. Don't get me wrong, SC 3 wasn't intended to be revolutionary by the time of its release - so we cannot compare that much with MoO3 which has some almost revolutionary mechanics, a galactic economic sim years ahead from now, but coded like a 1997 spreadsheet - just badly implemented for today's gaming community.

More to the topic, GalCiv: my favorite TBS after SMAC and the Civ series.

Me too..this is my favorite game after SMAC, Civ1, and Civ2 ...

in the grand list only Pirates!, the MAME emulator and Visual Pinball would be higher as well.

right after it would be Master of Orion 1 and Europa
Universalis 2

I loved Star Control. I never got tired of tedious landing, mining, collecting critters, etc. I was (probably overly so) amused at the little space dude tapping his foot when you would just stand around. Um.. or was that in one. geeze I feel old now..

fleabitfox

*High-fives Duglis*

Yeah, Pirates! is near the top of my favorites list too. I'd be scared to add up how many hours of my life I spent playing that. LOL

There are just too many games I like to pick one as my absolute favorite though. GalCiv is definately included in that elite group though.

If World War II is your thing check out Hearts of Iron....

I did like The Ancient Art of War a lot, I used to play it on a Mac with a tiny black & white screen.

More recently, the only games that I played a lot and for a long time were in the Total War series (Shogun, Mongol Invasion, Medieval). They are great turn based strategy and real time tactical battle games.
Medieval is the only one that I still play since I got galciv.
But no matter how good galciv is, I do miss the diplomatic options from SMAC and from Europa Universalis II.

The best game of all time? Starflight I and II! Any game that remotely resembled it, I've bought, including GalCiv. I've just started playing it and I have hopes. To me what made those games great is the same thing that great literature has: a sense of total immersion in another universe. They created this, despite primitive graphics and animation, by making it impressionistic. That is, your mind filled in the gaps of reality. Again the comparison to literature, I've never seen a science fiction/fanstasy novel turned to cinema that ever approaches the experience of reading it, LOTR for example. The key elements to SF was that it was the perfect mix of resource management, interaction, combat, surprise, and humor. One of the best features was that not everything was explained in the manual and you were allowed to discover. All of this was within a complex plot line, that you were free to discover at leisure. It is the only game that ever completely took me away from this universe. It seems that today the popular first-person shooters have taken over the gaming world and the developers have blinders on pandering to the adrenaline junkies which I sometimes am. Inevitably people will tire of that, and hopefully return to intelligent, even literary creations. There are a good number that feel this way as a team has been trying to develop an SFIII, now with one of the original programmers, but that's been ongoing for years. Incidentally, several of the programmers from SF programmed Star Control.

Well, I'll stop rambling and get back to gaming!

Starflight I and II would be my pick. Probably the graphic precursor to all space strategy gaems. It had everything: humor, interaction, mystery, discovery and at different levels. It was totally immersive and intelligent, almost literary. Some of this team went on to StarControl, but clearly SF was a team effort.

GalCiv is still best. So i think that we need to continue our discussion.

~SDC~

I haven't bought a new game since I got GalCiv. That is saying alot same I am a game junky. But GalCiv has the right balance to keep me coming back.

Pirates! It's still the game I've spent the most time... I miss it so much.
And there was Colonization. Much deeper than the Civ series. Multi-layered (natives, european powers, king). It's unbelievable that nobody is going to remake it...

I actually made a galactic board game with hex paper and game pieces from Buck Rogers and Fortress America. Star Control 2 was then used to play out the battles. At one time I had 6 friends all playing. Main problem was I was to good at the computer game so they had a hard time stopping me.
Was alot of fun. I had an economic system that you bought tech levels with. Each ship in Star Control had certain levels that had to be achieved to be able to build them. I tried to balance them based on how good I felt they were in the computer game.
So a Spathi ship might take Missle Tech 3, Propulsion Tech 4 and some other big ship (its been a ling time) might take Armor Tech 4, Hull Tech 6.
Plus there were other techs that allowed mine fields and gun turrets to be built on the strategic map (would destroy incoming ships 10% of the time).

Gads! Now I want to play that again!
TM Inc